


Binary Stars

by Auchen



Category: Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Drama, F/M, One Shot, Post-Thor: The Dark World
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-09
Updated: 2014-04-09
Packaged: 2018-01-18 18:45:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1438903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Auchen/pseuds/Auchen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jane has agreed to travel with Loki across the realms to study different stars and see new worlds. Over the surfaces of several planets, they circle each other, both afraid to get too close.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Binary Stars

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the 2013 Lokane gift exchange on tumblr. I wrote this for lossie92 and her prompt "third time's the charm".

_Binary star_

noun.

a system of two stars that revolve about their common center of mass.

—

I.

He promised to take her somewhere beautiful after he had accidentally (or so he said) opened a wormhole and deposited them on a barren asteroid. So he took her to Alfheim, where the enormous trees burst through grass that was almost unnaturally green. When they first entered Alfheim, Jane caught Loki more than one curling his lip as he looked at the beauty around them, as if the darkness inside of him flinched away from such light. Or perhaps it reminded him too much of Asgard.

After the scorching sun dipped below the horizon, he told her he wanted to show her the elves use their magic (but she suspected it had to do with optical illusions) to make it look as if the constellations formed moving images.

She snorted at this, but just agreed.

 

The performance was in a clearing of trees illuminated by a hovering white orb that floated above the middle of the grass. Jane’s mouth fell open, every anti-gravity theory she had read running through her mind. She turned to Loki. “How do they—” she stopped speaking when she saw the man beside her no longer looked like the God of Mischief.

He still looked similar to his true self, all narrow features and sharp angles, but he now had shorter brown hair and darker eyes, and skin tanned by the sun. No longer was he dressed in armor, but a simple tunic and leggings. Loki scoffed when he saw her face. “You didn’t think I would look like one of the most wanted men in the nine realms, did you?”

Shaking her head, she sat down at the edge of the clearing, the dew on the grass dampening her pants. Among the trees, she saw shapes shift, flicking in in and out of her vision before they came through the trees in a line.

“Light elves are ever the connoisseurs of the dramatic,” Loki said, and she was sure he rolled his eyes.

Dark shapes began to fill the empty spaces of the clearing. Three figures stood around the orb, watching with eyes that reflected the starlight as elves continued to line in. Without a word, they raised their hands to the sky, their palms white with the pulse of the orb.

The stars above seemed to shiver as tendrils of light snaked out of the orb and snatched them. Jane leaned forward, gasping at the sight.

Soon the sky was black, absent of stars, and the orb vibrated and hummed. Suddenly, light exploded out of it, shooting across the clearing. Images danced above their heads, tiny people linking shining hands, and creatures she had never seen before running past her. In their wake, they left a trail of starlight. The magic seemed to buzz inside of her, filling the cavities in her chest and head with joy. Jane turned to Loki to see his reaction, and found him nearer to her than she remembered.

“I told you that they had a sense of the dramatic, did I not?” The shine of the images around them were reflected in the dark eyes that were not his own.

“Well, they’re certainly good at it,” she said, nodding towards a white serpent that wound its way through the trees. “Is there any chance of you telling me how they do it?”

Jane found their hands pressed close together. How had that happened? He leaned in closer to her. “There is a chance of that, yes.”

A small part of her wanted to move away, but why should she? She was so happy here. So she only leaned in closer, their noses almost brushing. “And what would I have to do to get you to tell me?”

“Only this.” And his mouth was on hers all at once, his breath sweet from the cool night air and the magic that permeated it. But it was so c _old_ and it seeped into the nerves in her mouth. She pulled away, the buzz within her gone, leaving hollowness in its wake. The images were beginning to disappear.

She turned away from him, her back curved. Anger dripped into her mouth, replacing the cool taste of his breath. “Don’t try that again. How  _dare_  you take advantage of me!”

His long fingers dug into her shoulder as he jerked her around to face him. His eyes were black as the sky, and his teeth were gritted. “The magic only increased certain emotions. Neither of us did anything we wouldn’t have done had we been given more time under normal circumstances.”

“This is why you brought me here, isn’t it?” Her voice shook, and she cringed at the weakness in it.

“I wanted to show you the stars, and I have. I have done nothing I haven’t promised.” His voice had become smooth. She wanted to slap him for it.

She stood, brushing grass off of her legs as she took in a deep breath. “I think we should go.”

Loki’s shadow washed over her, and the world fell away into darkness.

II.

She didn’t know why she decided to return to Svartalfheim. She told herself it was because it would be easier to study the stars in a world that seemed to be locked in eternal night, but she knew that wasn’t why. It was because she wanted to confront the hazy memories of this realm that rose from the depths of her subconscious when she drifted between sleep and wakefulness. As she walked through the barren, dying landscape, she could remember the itch and burn of the Aether under her skin, and how it tried to press close to her heart.

When Jane finally stopped to lift the Asgardian glasses to her eyes and zoom in on the ragged moon that circled the planet, Loki halted at her side. Soon his silhouette stepped in front of her, blocking her view of the dim moon.

"Why did you want to come back to this gods-forsaken place?" His voice was sharp, and his eyes glittered like shards of glass.

"I wanted to study the stars here," she said, trying to speak the words like they were truth (she had been learning from the best).

Loki stepped closer, completely blotting out the light. “That isn’t why. Why should you want to come here, when I know the memories you have of it?”

Jane scowled at him, but swallowed when she remembered blood splattered across black rocks. “Memories shouldn’t get in the way of work. I thought you hated sentiment. Or was that another one of your lies?”

She knew she had gone too far when she heard a small avalanche of pebbles slide down hill, kicked by Loki surging forward. “Do you forget the memories I left here as well? Or are you only thinking of yourself again, as you have this entire time?”

She pulled the glasses off, her hands shaking as she did so. Heat blazed through her vision, and she gritted her teeth. “Sometimes I forget how skewed your version of the world is. Only thinking about  _myself?_ The person you described sounds a lot more like you. I’m not the one that manipulates others for my own gain.”

The blue light of the night painted in the harsh lines of his face when he leaned down, his breath hot on her cheeks. “You thought only of yourself and the knowledge you would gain when you agreed to come with me to explore the realms. You thought of yourself when you denied me in Alfheim.”

The hairs on the back of her neck stood up, every base instinct inside of her hissing at her to run. Her heel hit a stone, but that was as far as she moved. “Let’s leave.”

Loki’s nostrils flared, the curve of his shoulders stiff. The tips of his boots hit the front of her shoes. She gripped her hands to make them stop shaking; hoping that he couldn’t taste the fear in the air like a shark could smell blood. He was only trying to intimidate her, she told herself when her eyes flicked up and met his own. They were only inches apart, their breaths stirring the stray hairs around their faces.

Finally, he spoke. “Fine.”

He waved his hands, and the bottom of the world fell away beneath her.

III.

After so many months of walking the surface of different worlds, visiting Earth was almost strange. After the disastrous trip to Svartalfheim, Loki had seethed for several days, and they kept their distance from each other, especially when they visited Nidavellir. Jane did not want to end up in a shouting match with him when both of them were drunk on dwarf mead.

But after things had calmed down, they fell back into their unconventional rhythm. Days ago she had expressed an interest in returning to Earth, and so Loki chose a small town with low light pollution, but somewhere they could at least pick up some milk and bread. The evening sky was bleeding into the pale pinks and yellows of a sunset as they walked along the sidewalk, Jane staring at the world before her with glassy eyes.

Loki was at her side with the disguise he had used in Alfheim, now dressed in casual men’s wear. There almost seemed something wrong with him wearing jeans and a button down shirt after seeing him with armor. She spied a small diner on the other side of the street with its blinking “open” sign, the  _n_  intermittently blinking off.

Loki raised an eyebrow when he saw her looking at it. “You want to eat there? Surely we could find somewhere less…”

“Quaint?” she finished for him.

“That isn’t the word I was going to use, but I suppose it describes the diner as aptly as anything else.” He snorted and slipped his fists into his pockets.

—

The food was bland at best, but the waitress was all smiles and red lipstick when she brought their drinks and orders. Loki even had the presence of mind to slip into a friendly persona and thank her for the food, even maintaining it while the waitress preened at a handsome foreigner’s kindness.

Jane’s fork scraped against the plate, pushing the chicken in her salad from one side to the other. “How is yours?” She waved her hand at Loki’s soup that had stopped steaming minutes ago.

“As good as yours, I expect.”

She stabbed the lettuce, lifting it to her mouth to gnaw on the limp leaf. One of the lights above hummed and flickered, barely shooing away the shadows that lurked in the corners of the empty booths. She put down her fork with a clatter and stood, pulling out the wallet she had barely used in the past several months. (What was the use of green paper on alien worlds that still used coins made of precious metal?)

After she paid, she and Loki left the diner, their food in the still flickering light, cold and barely touched.

—

She set up her telescope on one of the hills that cupped the small valley in its palm. Her fingers remembered the correct motions to adjust the knobs, her hands steadier than they had been for a while. This was her element, the rolling hills of Earth, the lines of the big dipper, and familiar, comforting cool of a telescope.

 _But that’s not enough now, is it? Not after all you’ve seen?_  A part of her whispered, unbidden. Jane tried to push it away, but it lurked in the back of her mind as she leaned down, pointing the telescope near the horizon.

Loki shifted beside her, his breath the only sound aside from the distant song of crickets. For the next several minutes Jane traced familiar constellations with her eyes, hoping that it would bring sweet memories of home, but they seemed dull and faded.  _And why wouldn’t they seem that way, after you’ve looked at nebulas on the surface of other planets?_

She dragged herself away from the telescope, pinching the bridge of her nose. When did she start thinking in terms of “after”? Was it when the Aether was removed from her trembling veins, or was it when a man had dropped from the sky years ago? Or was it only recently?

She turned to Loki, who raised his eyebrows at her, waiting for her to speak.

“Is there something wrong with me?”

From the pale light of the moon, she saw the edges of his mouth turn up. “There’s something wrong with all of us, but you less so than me.”

Jane rolled her eyes. “No I mean…” she worried the bottom of her lip with her teeth, sighing. “I should be happy to be back on Earth, shouldn’t I? So why does everything seem different? A little more dull?”

He walked closer to her, but his anger wasn’t thick in the air this time. Perhaps it was because he did not wear the armor that made his silhouette jagged, but instead common clothes that smoothed out the harsh lines.

“I do not think it’s strange, no. Traveling, seeing things that the majority of Midgard hasn’t seen, I’m sure it would change your perspective.” He shrugged, but she could see something in his eyes that said,  _I know what it’s like for your home not to be your own anymore._

She wanted to lurch away when she saw it. Loki was someone who covered himself in layers of deceit and laughter. Those few times she had seen something genuine and open in him it frightened her. Seeing it made her want to trust him. She couldn’t trust the man that had once tried to rule her world.

But then, hadn’t she trusted him already, simply by agreeing to accompany him across the realms? She closed her eyes, letting out a painful breath. “I suppose you’re right.”

Eyes flickering open, she saw his hand extended towards her, an eyebrow raised. “Shall we leave, then?”

She glanced one last time to her telescope; pointed towards the stars she had seen most of her life. Her eyes fell on his hand again, and she stepped forward, placing her fingers against his palm. His hand was warm against hers.

“Let’s go,” he said.

With those words, the world drifted away, and she breathed in stardust.


End file.
